Margaret Sanger.

A film about the enduring legacy of American birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger narrated by Katharine Hepburn who knew her as a child. Archivists are seen at work on her archives in a library at Smith College. Hepburn narrates her history over various photographs of her life with historical archive footage. She became involved in the social emancipation of women; Sanger married and had children; she trained as a nurse and when the children were still young worked in the Lower East Side in New York City (amply illustrated with archive footage). Dissatisfied with seeing how poverty was made worse by large families, she started the American Birth Control Movement but fell foul of the authorities and fled to Europe. Travelling to Holland she learnt about the first birth control clinic. She returned to the US and set up a clinic; it was open for a day and then closed. The publicity around the case generated many letters from desperate women who had too many children. Sanger was inspired to run clinics around the US. After 1918, Sanger travelled to Asia and saw the wider issues regarding population control. Sanger established the International Planned Parenthood Federation in 1952.There is some wonderful archive of Sanger speaking, at first just the audio then footage of Sanger herself. By the middle of the twentieth century, population control was an important international issue (Lyndon B. Johnson is captured on film making a speech on this topic). Responsible parenthood was later endorsed by the Catholic Church. Footage contemporary to the film indicates the prevailing situation with images of birth control lectures from around the world to indicate progress.